Hacking Problem with 3in1

[flimbo]

So yesterday my ez 3in1 broke, it says that the game saved data is corrupted and while trying to create new save it says that the file couldnt be created. Today I tried to change the battery, that didnt helped too.

What shoud I do? Should I buy a new one? 3in1 is only 1,5 month old

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

your probably playing a game that requires SRAM patching. either that or your trying to play a 32MB game in PSRAM mode.

 

[flimbo]

I played that game for 2 weeks and it worked fine. Its Legend of Zelda A Link to the Past. And after I finished that game I started to play Golden sun and it worked fine too.

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

Oh, I know what it is.

You ended up doing a save when your battery power lvl showed red. This results in writing either nothing or erasing your save. You will have to write a working backup save to the 3in1.

If you don't have a backup save file somewhere, your pretty much screwed. It is actually an old problem of ALL gba flashcarts.

 

[flimbo]

Well DS was charged day before when the 3in1 screwed up

So I dont think that it is the problem. Every time GBA Exploder asks to set Slo2 expansion pack for it... I though it is the battery but the battery was alomost full when I taked it out and with the new one is the same.

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

that is the only answer that would match your problem. It is a more common problem than you think. I play those game you mention for months and never had a problem in more than once in 6 months.

I can't help you from here since you either didn't say what you actually did conciously or you discounted the previous answers.

 

[flimbo]

Well the last thing I did is just turned off the ds while playing golden sun and after turning it on it stopped working normally. Ram on opera is working, rumble is working, but just cant save games... So I'm going to buy a new one. What should I avoid doing and what should I do to prevent this?

Some time before I played golden sun with low battery, saved it and played until the ds turned off, nothing happened.

 

[zshckfle]

werde you buy it from?

 

[flimbo]

dealextreme.com

 

[zshckfle]

go figure.
dx is just one big scam from hong kong.
dont order from there. they ripped me off a lot: $34.89

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

Stop giving poor advice based on your crappy experience. There are plenty of us that order from DX without a problem.

 

[minoplis]

A friend of mine is having the same problem with his ez flash 3 in 1. After a few months, it just won´t load saves anymore, he was playing Zelda Minish Cap w/o any problems until someday the message "save file corrupted" appeared, since then, game saves can't be saved/loaded with his 3 in 1.
He claims he tested the battery and it's not dead, also the RAM and rumble functions are working fine. What could it be? Is there any chance of a hardware problem?

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

Most of those games your saying you have problems with or games already mentioned, ALL require SRAM patching or patching of some kind to work on the 3in1. Whatever patcher your using is not working means USE ANOTHER PATCHER.

Zelda: Minish Cap uses EEPROM save, if you didn't patch the game with a SRAM patcher that doesn't conflict with 3in1 hardware, your going to end up with a corupt save data after a while.

 

[badchilli]

minoplis: definitely listen and take the advice given by how_do_i_do_that. He knows his stuff.

I'd also add that playing GBA roms require a lot more work and research. It isn't as straightforward as playing NDS roms. You'll often have to look up what kind of saving method the GBA game/rom used and patch accordingly, as how_do_i_do_that indicated.

On top of that, as how_do_i_do_that also mentioned, you may to try different patching programs (gbata, ez4client, 3in1 tool, etc) to find one that works well for that particular game/rom.

Also some games/roms can be only played from NOR rather than PSRAM memory of your 3in1, so you'll have to research which games those are, as even with correct patching, some games won't save right unless in NOR. Some of the patching programs, like gbata, will tell you the save type of that particular GBA rom, and so you'll know you'll have to patch it.

Also some games/rom work better with certain programs in combination with whatever flashcart you have (gba exploder, GBALdr, YSMenu 3in1 support, AKAIO 3in1 support, etc). Also with something like GBA Exploder, the particular version number will matter for your particular hardware combination (flashcart + firmware and type of 3in1). Not all 3in1 are the same (ie 3in1+).

You didn't mentioned what flashcart your friend is using with the 3in1.

If it's the EZ flash V/Vi, there are even more variables as different kernals handle GBA rom playing differently, so it'll also depend on the firmware he has installed.

I found this post taken from the EZ flash forums, on some suggested rules, depending on which EZ Flash V firmware is being used. Some of the newer EZ Flash kernals will auto-patch GBA roms, but while convenient, it can be slow, so I'll often disable the auto-patching, and just patch the rom myself.

Rules :
k1.86h=patched GBA rom with ezclient 4
k1.90OB11= clean GBA rom and use only single rom mode.
K2.0RC4=clean GBA rom
GBAExploader 0.58b=clean GBA rom and disabled multi-save in .ini file

Lastly some GBA rom/games are just a real pain to play (as in saving), no matter what you do, if they used a really funky save type.

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

Then there are the handful of games that don't run at all; like Sonic Adv 2 (stops working after a certain point in the game), dragonball z, etc. Someone had a link to a list of games that don't work awhile ago, it might have been deleted with the oldest year deletion stuff.

Best things to use to id what save type the game uses are:
offline: offlinelist (tells you what offical save type is), gbata (tells you what save type your game is using, not the same as the first)
online: gonline (found on this site, same as offlinelist)